Dwight Smith......the name alone instantly rekindles a flood of memories for long-time Hilltopper fans. Not only for the unbelievable skills that he possessed on the basketball court, but for all of the unfulfilled promise that ended when his life was tragically cut short in an automobile accident in 1967.

A native
of Princeton, Ky., Dwight, along with Campbellsville's Clem Haskins,
became the first black athletes to integrate the legendary Hilltopper
Basketball program in the Fall of 1963.

Coming out
of Princeton's all-black Dotson High School, the 6' 4" Smith
was a highly recruited athlete sought after by schools all across
the nation. Kansas, Cincinnati, Ohio St., Louisville, Michigan
and Western Kentucky were among the many suitors vying for Dwight's
considerable talents. In the end however, it was E.A. Diddle
and the Hilltoppers that won the recruiting battle. And one incident
in particular that helped convince the Smith family that Western
was the place for Dwight occurred after a Hilltopper game in
the Winter of '63. Dwight's father, Henry Smith recalls,"We
went up there for a game in the old Red Barn and I remember going
in the dressing room, and there was Dwight sitting on Mr. Diddle's
knee." Mr.
Diddle told everyone, 'This is one of the players that is going to turn this program around."

Diddle's
words would soon appear prophetic as Dwight, Clem, and Greg Smith
(Dwight's younger brother) quickly catapulted the Hilltoppers
back to the top of the college basketball world. From 1964-'67,
the three varsity teams that Smith played on posted a combined
record of 66-15 and participated in the NIT once ('65) and the
NCAA twice ('66 & '67). And were it not for an horrendous
and suspicious call in the 1966 NCAA Tournament game vs. Michigan,
and a devastating wrist injury to First-Team All-American Clem
Haskins in 1967, Dwight and his teammates could very easily have
walked away with two NCAA titles.

During those
three years, Dwight established himself as one of the finest
all-around players in the nation, and perhaps THE finest rebounding
guard anywhere. His ball-handling skills and defensive prowess
were the stuff of legend. Hilltopper great John Oldham, who coached
Dwight at Western stated, "Dwight probably was one of the greatest
ball handlers I've ever seen and I guarded Bob Cousy about ten
times, and he is credited with being a great ball player. But
when we scrimmaged I would often put two players on Dwight, because
he could whip one player in about two steps. So I scrimmaged
five against six, two of them defending Dwight. He was that good.....it's
like Jordan. That's the only time I ever did that in 12 years
of coaching. He liked the idea. He liked the competition."

On Smith's
defensive skills, former teammate and best friend Clem Haskins
stated,"Murray
State had a guy named Speedy Duncan, and Eastern had Bobby Washington. They were two of the
quickest guards in basketball. Bobby came to Western averaging
22 points, and Dwight held him to two. Bobby couldn't get the
ball over the ten-second line against Dwight. It was the same
thing with Speedy Duncan."

A fierce
competitor, Smith always strived for victory no matter what the
circumstances. Haskins states, "He always ran number one in sprints,
Wayne Chapman was two and I was three. I never beat him in one-on-one,
and that's gospel. He made it very difficult for me to score.
He had tremendous ball-handling skills and I couldn't stop him
going to the basket. He could pull up and hit the jumper on the
drive." Although
Haskins got most of the headlines during those days at Western,
he states, "Dwight
Smith's an All-American. The papers or press might not say that,
but he's an All-American. Dwight Smith was the catalyst of our
team."

Naturally,
being two of the first black players in the south, everything
wasn't always easy for Smith and Haskins. "He needed me and I needed him.
We leaned on each other's shoulders. We had a lot of wars to
fight then with the barrier just broken," Haskins said, "The people will never know
what we went through then. There were many nights where we cried
ourselves to sleep." In reference to some of the trials they faced,
Coach Oldham states,
"A lot of times after a ball game we couldn't.......black
and whites couldn't go into the same restaurant unless the black
players would go in the back door, and I wouldn't do that. So
I would have the trainer or manager buy us a hamburger and french
fries and a piece of pie and a large drink, and we would put
it on the bus on head back to Bowling Green. I never said anything
about it, I never even discussed it with the players.......it
was tough, we would go into some places and they would holler
the "n" word. But our players......that never caused
us a major problem. I mean I'm sure that it was embarrassing
to a lot of the schools and administrators and things but we
didn't make an issue out of it."

Despite his
dynamic presence and showmanship on the court, off the court
Dwight was a very different person. "He was ultra-quiet," Oldham states. "He was friendly,
but he was a semi-loner. I'd say it was some shyness on his part."
In fact,
Henry Smith said it was a common occurrence around campus for
girls to intentionally drop something in front of his son just
to get him to stop and pick it up, in order to say a word to
him.

Also a model
student, the former class valedictorian of his high school majored
in Physical Education and Sociology at Western and had plans
to enter the coaching profession after his playing days were
over. And his playing days on the Hill are hard for anyone to
forget. Hilltopper great Jim Pickens, who starred on the gridiron
for Western in the 1940's, and who was coaching baseball there
in the 1960's, grew up in Princeton with Henry Smith, and he
has no hesitation in stating that, "Dwight was just an all-around
super, super ballplayer. I don't put anybody at Western Kentucky
- I've been here since 1947 - talentwise, ahead of Dwight Smith."

Comments such as this certainly aren't rare
when it comes to discussing Smith. Many people rank Dwight among
the best they've ever seen on the Hill, including his freshman
coach, Topper great Dan King, "The best ball players I've ever seen
(Dwight & Clem). They worked hard,there wasn't no substitute
for them. They gave you 110%...they hit the floor and they didn't
care what it took to win....that's the way they were."

Although
Dwight sacrificed a high scoring average for the overall benefit
of the teams he played on at Western, his career stats still
hold a high place of distinction in the Hilltopper record books.
His 1,142 career points (14.6ppg) is still good enough for 24th
all-time. And even more impressive is his career rebound average
of (11.0rpg) good enough for eighth all-time at WKU.....impressive
in its own right, but even more so when you consider that he
achieved those numbers playing from the guard position!!

Perhaps the
only thing missing from Dwight's career at Western is the fact
that the Hilltoppers weren't able to bring the National Championship
Trophy home to the Hill. However, it proved to be no fault of
the team that this didn't occur. Following a remarkable 23-2
record in the 1965-66 regular season, a season in which the Toppers
outscored their opponents by an average margin of over 18 points
per game, they headed for the "Big Dance" with something
to prove. And after a 105-86 thrashing of #3 Loyola,(Ill.) in
the first round of the 1966 NCAA Tourney (in which Dwight led
Western with 29 points and five rebounds), the Toppers next faced
Big Ten Champion Michigan. The winner of the game would go on
to face adolph rupp and the kentucky wildcats in the Mideast
Regional Final. A proposition that was very desirable for Dwight,
Clem, and Greg....but especially Dwight. Coming out of high school,
uk had also offered Dwight a basketball scholarship, but upon
learning that Smith was black the entire offer was rescinded.
And even though Dwight, like Haskins, never had any interest
in attending kentucky, this incident always remained in the back
of his mind, hoping that one day the chance for payback would
arrive.

And it would have,were it not for what Haskins calls, "The worst call
in the history of basketball. It cost us a national title in
1966." (For
more about this game check out the following links:Greg
Smith interview,
John
Oldham interview,
1965-66
Hilltoppers)
With Western having so much to gain and kentucky having so much
to lose in such a matchup, many people to this day have no doubt
that the jump ball call, and several other calls throughout the
game can be credited to more than official's "mistakes."
Lexington Herald-Leader journalist Billy Reed, who was
there in Iowa City covering the Toppers in 1966, recalls that
a birthday celebration for former Coach E.A. Diddle in a hotel
room soon after the game turned into a very tense situation when
kentucky coach adolph rupp interrupted the occasion to offer
his "congratulations" to Diddle. Texas Western, with
an all-black starting five, went on to defeat uk for the 1966
national title.

Dwight, being
the intense competitor that he was, let his emotions flow and
reportedly cried all night
after the Michigan game. However, like all winners in life, the
Toppers would rebound to once again challenge for the title in
1967. After being upset in the first game of the 1966-'67 season,
Dwight and his teammates reeled off 21 straight victories and
held firmly to the #3 ranking in the national polls. However,
a broken wrist on the shooting hand of Clem Haskins late in the
season forced the All-American to miss considerable action. And
upon his return, Haskins was forced to wear a cast on the wrist,
which dramatically hampered his shooting ability and all but
assured the Toppers of an uphill battle in their quest for the
national championship.

Still, behind
the strong play and leadership of Dwight, the Toppers managed
to convincingly win six of their final seven regular season games
to finish with a brilliant 23-2 record. But the Haskins injury
proved to be too much for the team to overcome in the NCAAs.

Facing a
strong Dayton team in the first round (a squad which Western
had defeated (82-68) in the Mideast Regional consolation game
in 1966), the Toppers let a large first half lead slip away as
the Flyers caught up and sent the game into overtime before winning
69-67. Dayton then advanced all the way to the national championship
game where they were defeated by the Lew Alcindor-led UCLA Bruins.
Despite a valiant effort by Dwight and the entire team, Haskins
could only manage to hit a small percentage of his shots with
the cast on his shooting hand, and as a result the Topper's championship
hopes were effectively ended.

Thus, the
basketball career of Dwight Smith ended on the Hill....a magnificent
career that despite all of the many great accomplishments, was
left with much unfulfilled promise. Still, despite the frustrating
defeat, Dwight had many great things to look forward to in life.
He was soon to become the first person in his family to graduate
from college and he was almost assuredly going to enjoy a long
and prosperous professional basketball career.

By Mother's
Day in May of 1967, both of these dreams were on the verge of
becoming reality for Dwight.
He had recently been drafted in the second round by the Los Angeles
Lakers and already had plans to fly to L.A. to sign his contract
as soon as school was over. But Dwight, Greg, and sister Kay
had driven back home to celebrate Mother's Day with their family
that weekend and to be honored at a covered-dish banquet in Princeton.
Because of their need to study for finals however, the trio left
for Western that night despite the extremely rainy conditions
that had existed all weekend. After dropping a friend off in
nearby Nortonville, Greg headed the car towards Bowling Green.
What happened next proved to one of the most tragic moments in
the history of Western Kentucky University.

Taking a
route that he had never driven before, Greg approached a blind
curve in the road, and without warning the car began to hydroplane
out of control. It then ran directly into a puddle of water that
was standing in the road before skidding into a bank and flipping
over submerged in a water-filled ditch. Greg managed to find
an air pocket and eventually escape. Dwight and sister Kay were
not so fortunate however....both drowned in the car before rescuers
could save them.

Henry Smith
recalls that he and his wife, Pearl, were uncommonly nervous
about their children's trip home that night. "My wife and I were running
into each other in the house," he said. "It seemed like a premonition,
and I said to myself, 'Something's not right.' "Then the
phone rang, and I said, 'Oh, Lord.' I got scared. I went to the
phone and the man said. 'Is this the Smith family?' "I put
the receiver down, put it right down, turned around and looked
at Pearl in the doorway. She passed out. She had an idea something
was wrong. It was incredible. Incredible. I'll never forget it."

"So
the phone rang again, and so I went back. It seemed like God
gave me strength to go back to that phone and pick that receiver
up. When I did, he said, 'Is this the Smith's residence?"
"I said, 'Yes it is.' I said, 'What's wrong?' He said, 'Do
you have two children, or three children?' I said 'Yes, I do.'
He said, 'We believe that Dwight and Kay have drowned,' I said,
'Oh Lord, have mercy.'" Henry rushed to the scene, where a crowd had
formed to try and save Dwight and Kay, and says that, "It was pandemonium.
It said in the papers that they would say, 'Get up Dwight. Get
up Dwight. Don't be dead, Dwight. It seems like yesterday."

The shocking
news had yet to spread to Bowling Green and the Western campus,
but Clem Haskins, who was in Hazard that day to witness high
schooler Jim Rose sign with the Toppers, recalls driving back
towards Bowling Green and hearing the news on a radio broadcast
out of Louisville. "I
drove around for the next hour, but I kind of blacked out. I
was in a daze. I remember trying to find a phone. I called in
Bowling Green and couldn't get anybody. I called Mr. Diddle's
house but he hadn't heard. Neither had Coach Oldham. Finally
I got a hold of Lloyd Gardner (a team manager). It was one of
the saddest, darkest days of my life."

The outpouring
of support from across the state, and particularly the Western
community was enormous. Over 5,000 persons attended the services
for Dwight and Kay in Princeton. Among those present were U of
L stars Wes Unseld and Butch Beard and members of Murray State's
team. Picken's recalls the sad occasion, "I remember hugging Henry and
tears flowing down both of our eyes and going up and looking
at Dwight, and I just couldn't visualize that that had happened.
We had lost a good one. We had lost a good one, one of the best."

Oldham states, "His death
was a great loss to the university community. He was one of the
most unselfish players I have ever seen - and one of the all-around
finest too. Anytime I see a great athlete's life has been snuffed
out, you can't help but recall."

Former teammate
Butch Kaufmann:, "I
feel myself reach out for him, even right now. And it's good
to let somebody else know how good he was. He'll always be alive
in my heart. And I know the other guys feel the same way."

E.A. Diddle: "Dwight was
intelligent, friendly, a great basketball player.....and just
a good boy."

Despite not
being able to graduate from college, Western nonetheless awarded
Dwight his degree. Vice-President for administrative affairs,
Dero Downing, at the request of then-President Kelly Thompson,
personally delivered and presented the diploma to Henry and Pearl
Smith at their home in Princeton.

Greg Smith,
who like his parents, still lives with a heavy heart, remembers
Dwight with great love and respect, "You don't forget something
like that. It's a haunting memory, and there's hardly a a day
that goes by that you don't think about it. It's something I'll
carry until the day I leave. It was one of those moments in life........my
brother would have been an incredible Pro because he was twice
the player I was. He would have been gone with the Lakers initially,
and he would have played 10 or 12 years in the Pros, and he would
probably be one of the most recognized coaches and recognized
persons in this world......he was that type of a
winner. He was dynamic......."

In 1995,
Dwight Smith became a member of the fifth class to be inducted
into the Western Kentucky University Hall of Fame.